Chapter 26
Istare at the doorway like my mind can’t process what I’m seeing.
Elena.
In my warehouse. In the room.
Surrounded by blood and violence and the pieces of the man I become when she isn’t looking.
My heart stops. Then it restarts with a vicious snap of fury.
“The hell are—” I take a step forward.
Rocco is moving too, fast and feral, as protective as I’ve ever seen him. “Jesus, El—”
But I get to her first. I grab her hand—too hard, too desperate—and yank her out of the room. I don’t think. I don’t look. I don’t care that I’m dragging blood—someone else’s blood—onto her skin.
All I know is she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t see any of this. She shouldn’t see me like this.
I barely register Dante barking orders behind me as I haul her down the hallway, shoving open the first door I find.
A bathroom.
Fine. I push her inside and slam the door shut so hard the frame rattles.
Then I step back because if I touch her again, I won’t be able to stop from shaking her.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I roar, pacing away from her, hands ripping through my hair. “You left the house—alone—without telling anyone—you came here—to a fucking war zone—are you out of your mind?”
She doesn’t flinch. Not once.
Her back stays straight. Her chin stays high. Her eyes stay on me—steady, unblinking.
That mask is back. The one I hate. The one her father carved into her from childhood.
And I feel it—guilt slicing through my rage.
She saw me like this. Covered in blood. Losing control.
Becoming the monster I never wanted her to see.
I face her fully, chest heaving.
“Why the fuck,” I growl, stepping closer, “would you do something so dangerous? Why would you come here? Why would you put yourself in the middle of this? Why would you want to—” I choke on the last words. “—see me like this?”
She looks up at me.
And then—
She smiles.
A soft, heartbreaking, infuriating smile.
“Because I love you.”
Everything inside me stops. Every molecule. Every breath. Every thought.
She keeps going, stepping toward me, her voice steady and soft but stronger than anything that’s ever been said to me in my life.
“I love all of you, Alessandro. Every part. Every piece. Even the ones you think I should run from.”
I stare at her like she just said something impossible. Something forbidden. Something I’ve wanted and feared in equal measure. She reaches up and touches my bloodstained knuckles.
“You are hunting the men who attacked us,” she whispers. “But you are also tearing yourself apart while you do it.”
My throat tightens painfully.
“You can still make them pay,” she says, eyes burning into mine. “You can still protect us. You can still be the man you are.” She steps closer until her chest brushes mine. “But you will not destroy yourself doing it.”
Her hand slides to my jaw. “And you will not shut me out. Not anymore.”
I swallow hard, trying to breathe. She loves me. She fucking loves me.
And I don’t deserve any of it.
But God help me—
I want it.
I want her.
I want every version of her she will ever give me.
“Dove…” My voice breaks. “You can’t just—”
She presses her forehead to mine. “Yes,” she whispers. “I can.”
And for the first time in my life, I feel something stronger than rage. Stronger than revenge.
Her words detonates inside my chest. Not gentle. Not careful. A bomb.
Because I love you.
The world dissolves into static. One moment I am staring at her, the blood still hot on my knuckles from the animal I was torturing in the next room—the next, I am looking at the woman who had just rewired my entire savage existence. Love.
I grip her dress, pulling her tighter against me. Wrapping my hands so tight around it that I feel like it's going to rip off her body. The blood that was once on my hands has transferred to her dress. But I don't care. I'll buy her another one.
I grab her face, her waist, her everything, and I am kissing her like a man who’s been starving for years, a man who just found salvation in the wreckage.
Her back slams against the cold, tiled wall of the small utility bathroom. She gasps into my mouth, a sound of shock and immediate passion.
I swallow the sound, devour it, devour her, because she loves me—
She loves me—
God help me, that single truth brings me to my knees.
Literally.
I drop to my knees in front of her, forehead pressed to her stomach, hands gripping her thighs as if I were holding onto the only salvation left in this blood-soaked life.
I bury my face against her, inhaling her clean, unique scent—the antidote to the metallic stench of the room next door.
“Elena,” I breathe against her skin, voice completely wrecked. “Dio… I can’t— I can’t breathe without you.”
She threads her fingers into my hair, her touch both a blessing and an order, and I nearly fall apart right here.
This is not about control anymore; this is about absolute, primal worship.
I slide my hands down, pushing the thin fabric of her dress up and out of the way. I settle my mouth over the hot, sensitive core of her, a final, definitive act of possession and surrender.
I am tasting her, claiming her, proving that the only thing that mattered in this world now is her pleasure.
She cries out immediately, a choked, desperate sound that fuels my desperation.
I use my tongue and fingers with focus, savage reverence, ignoring the cold tiles pressing into my knees, ignoring everything but her rising gasps.
When her body goes lax, trembling and slick, I rise.
I stand with her pressed against me, lifting her into my arms, and carry her to the small counter along the wall, settling her against the edge. She wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me closer, pulling me in like she owns me.
Because she does.
I pin her to the counter with my hips, her legs automatically wrapping around my waist.
And when I sink into the kiss again—slow this time, reverent—I realize I am already gone for her. Completely.
“Alessandro,” she whispers, breath trembling against my ear. “I love you.”
I press my forehead to hers, chest heaving, my body hard and ready, poised for entry.
And then—I tell her the truth that had been clawing at my ribs for weeks.
I look directly into her eyes, which are shining, stunned, filled with fresh tears of love.
I drive into her in one deep, agonizing motion, feeling the sharp, intense friction of our bodies meeting completely. And I deliver my vow.
“I love you, Elena.” My voice a broken, shaking promise.
Her eyes widen, shining, stunned, and I kiss her again, gentler, deeper, everything in me—my history, my violence, my desperate, fragile hope—pouring into her mouth.
I don't break the rhythm. I begin to move, slow and deep, claiming her body with measured intensity.
I trail slow kisses along her jaw, up her throat, to the place beneath her ear that makes her whisper my name like a prayer.
“Ti amo,” I murmur there, the words, my vow. “Ti amo… with everything I am.”
I move to the other side of her neck, lips brushing her skin before I breathe the words again—
This time in the language she grew up hiding her soul behind, the language that unlocked her deepest fears and desires.
“Ya lyublyu tebya.”
She cries out—not from pain, but from the emotional shock of the acceptance. Her body trembles, convulsing around mine.
The fragile control I maintained—the self-control necessary to speak the vow three times—snaps. I lose the ability to be gentle, to be measured. I start fucking her harder, faster, driven by the raw, brutal certainty of her love.
My hips drive into hers with punishing, glorious speed, slamming her against the cold tile wall.
I bury my face against her neck, teeth nipping lightly at her skin, claiming her with every word.
“You are mine, mia vita,” I roar against her skin. “Mine, Elena! You are mine to keep, mine to love, mine to save! Say you’re mine!”
Her voice is raw, shredded by the intense pace. “I’m yours! Always yours!”
I pour every ounce of my desperation, my rage, and my love into her until my body seizes, exploding inside her with a shout that shakes the tile walls.
I collapse against her, my chest heaving, my body heavy and slick. I don't move, holding her tight, pinning her to the wall.
I love her the way a man loves something he never thought he could have. The way a sinner loves the first breath of absolution.
I lean down, pull her dress back down her body, take her hand and lead her out of the warehouse without another word.